Cultural Confusion

Fourteen years ago, Robert & I started spending hours upon hours with Haitians, enough time that I learned to speak their language. Robert, being raised by a French mother only had to make some changes to his language to communicate.After two years with Haitians, God moved us into the Bosnian community where we spent the next five or so years. It is important to note that we never left the Haitians we just spent time in three different cultures, American, Haitian and Bosnian. In 2001 we again moved our focus to another culture, that of Afghanistan. As the years have gone on we have added three African cultures, and the Uzbek culture to our roster.Over the years since 94' Robert has become increasingly cross cultural but it has been very normal to him because this is the way he grew up, Jews, Iranians, Iraqis, French, Russian and on it goes in his home. If they were not originally from America his mother invited them home for dinner. She invited Americans too but you had to be a certain type of American to come and be willing to stay in the culture created by so many other cultures in the home.As for me, I grew up with people of different cultures around me but not in my home every minute of the day. We had people over on special occasions, Thanksgiving, Christmas etc. So here I sit 14 years later having difficulties that I don't understand.Last week we had two dinners to attend. The first an Uzbek family invited us to their home for dinner. I looked forward to it all week. I thought about how to adjust the culture in my head to fit into theirs. Knowing they were Muslim I chose my clothes to be appropriate for them, no short sleeve shirts, no skirts and I made certain my feet were really clean, no street dust. I then thought about who would be there and topics that would be fun to talk about. I made certain that as a family we did not have a large lunch and only a small snack for the kids in the afternoon as we were going into an eating marathon of very good food. We must eat or dishonor the family.I thought of the words that I knew in Uzbek and could use. Put my "Rakhmat" in place of my most used word for "thank you" (the thank you word I use most often right now that just rolls off of my tongue quickly is the Kizigua Bantu "Asante" followed quickly by the Mai Mai word wattmahatsuntie) I needed to replace them and use "Rakhmat" instead.That evening we had a great time, talking, laughing and enjoying new and old friends. My children being raised in the same type of home as my husband had jumped right in, adjusted their culture like breathing and played with their friends. Robert hung with the men, went outside and walked around. We all went away feeling like it was a successful night.However as I drove away a familiar nagging feeling hit me. I never feel this relaxed in America anymore. By this I mean that when I spend time in a room for that many hours with Americans I leave feeling uptight and out of place. This nagging stayed with me all the next day as I knew I had an all American event to attend that evening.As I thought about it I analyzed my life and realized that I spend very little time in a strictly American society. By that I mean a room where the American culture is the dominant one. At our home the dominant culture is not a pure American one, it has American pieces, Haitian pieces, many Bosnian and Afghan pieces and even Laotian pieces thanks to one of our favorite people. We go to church for one hour a week but even there we sit with and spend much of our time in the building with an English Language Teacher, her husband and a young family from the Congo. So as you can see it is very rare that we spend time in a strictly American enviroment.So on the day of the American party I was nervous and unsure even a little angry. On the night of the event I had figured out what my problem was... when going into an American cultural situation I just went in and didn't prepare myself for the change. So on this night I prepared. I thought of how to act, what to say, what to wear and yes- even which "thank you" to use. It was odd thinking for me but it worked. So often lately when I leave these places I am unhappy worried that I did something wrong but I never understand why. I think I finally figured it out. So many pieces have added to my cultural make up that I have to be on my game and I take my American culture for granted which is just not there the way it used to be.In summary "Thank you" is not my first choice. I usually use asante, wattmahatsuntie, speciba, tashakur, or merci first. I don't use the culture I grew up in near as often as I use the one I have adopted to help me move into the Bantus, the Afghans, the Bosnians or the Africans. I take my shoes off at the front door much more often then I leave them on and I don't assume you speak English. It has been a very fun and interesting change for me. However, it comes with its share of confusion as well.